Family and housing allowance, four-week holiday leave and sickness allowance - in the age of common junk contracts, many Poles can only dream of similar rarities. Meanwhile, the Home Army employed precisely these principles. Right in the middle of a war!
In occupied Poland, having all the necessary documents was literally a matter of life and death. The Arbeitskarte certifying employment was one of the most important. Without it, every captured person was immediately sent to work deep into Germany. And since not all members of the underground had time for normal work, the Home Army helped them obtain false papers.
Fictitious employment, although it gave a sense of security in the street, did not provide a living. No one paid the members of the underground, and certainly not the money that would allow them to survive. However, the conspirators had their own organization for that - perhaps the best place to work in occupied Poland .
A liter of vodka or a kilogram of bacon?
The salary of a city official in Warsaw at the end of 1942 ranged from one hundred and twenty-six zlotys and fifty groszy to eight hundred zlotys, and an average of about two hundred and seventy zlotys. Six months later, you could get three kilograms of beef or two kilograms of pork on the black market.
The prices on the black market during the occupation were prohibitive. The photo shows a Polish trader in an illicit commodity. Illustration from the book "Occupation from the kitchen. The Female Art of Survival "(color:RK)
If someone allowed himself a liter of vodka, he had twenty eggs left or twenty kilograms of fresh cabbage, because a kilogram of pork fat was already too expensive. After such purchases, you were left penniless. It was different in the countryside. Those near Warsaw even fed the city during the occupation.
Against this background, the conspiracy sometimes provided incredibly high salaries , although only a select group of the most involved.
For selected only
Subversion was especially highly valued. The head of the Kedyw District of the Home Army in Warsaw, Józef R. Rybicki "Andrzej", received in 1944 - note - six thousand seven hundred zlotys a month! Such a large sum consisted of, apart from the base, housing, family, safety and even a special coal allowance. And it should be emphasized that these goods reached sky-high prices. Some people literally risked their lives to get a few nuggets of black gold.
Józef Rybicki "Andrzej" was definitely one of the best-paid soldiers of the Home Army. The photo shows Kennkart Rybicki, released in February 1942 (source:public domain).
Unfortunately, most of these amounts were spent in conspiratorial work:renting a flat, traveling (in Warsaw, for example, liaison officers were returned money for tram tickets), and sometimes bribes. The organization did not always have the resources to deal with urgent matters. In such a situation, members of the underground sometimes reached into their own pockets and often did not receive a refund.
The rates in the Home Army differed depending on the region. And so, in Krakow, Lviv and Radom, the counterparts of "Andrzej" received two thousand one hundred zlotys in the base, in the provinces already one thousand seven hundred zlotys, and in Vilnius or Lodz seven hundred marks, which in mid-1943 was converted on the black market into about two one thousand one hundred zlotys. However, the cost of living differed from area to area, so it is difficult to treat these amounts the same way.
Also, Rybicki's associates in Warsaw had to be content with more than half as much. Still, they allowed for a life at a level several times higher than that of a city official. In turn, the rank and file of the Home Army could only count on small amounts paid when they were in full readiness to take action.
No vacation, don't move
The work of the conspirator, which should not be surprising, was particularly stressful. Despite the support of the organization, people most involved in underground activities also exhausted problems with food or the inability to keep warm in winter.
Private soldiers of the Home Army could count on small amounts only when they were in full combat readiness. The photo shows the soldiers of the 27th Volhynian Division of the Home Army (source:public domain).
To remedy this, they were sent on holidays. In April 1943, Stefan Rowecki "Grot", the commander of the Home Army, issued the following order:
Kmdci [Commanders] Okr [ęgów] (Obw [obów]) will regulate the summer service in such a way that by the end of August this year. everyone could take the 4-week holiday leave . When going on vacation, be guided primarily by health needs, and then by the need to break away from the team of conspiratorial clubs and people for a while .
We won't skip Invalids!
There are casualties in every war. Some lost their lives, others lost their health. In accordance with the order from March 1944, an invalid who, due to injuries sustained during his service, could no longer act in the underground, was to receive 1,350 zlotys if he was a bachelor and 1,600 zlotys if he had a family. In addition, he could receive two hundred and forty zlotys a month for each child (maximum three). They were also paid extra for prostheses.
The Home Army even paid its soldiers sickness benefits. Monthly it was PLN 450. The picture shows 500 zlotys from the occupation, the so-called highlander (source:public domain).
Less, only four hundred and fifty zlotys, was paid as a sickness benefit, also granted for a maximum of three months. A separate fund was allocated to the funerals of the fallen and to support their families.
For example, in August 1943, the Kedyw Okręgu Warszawa AK spent over ten thousand zlotys to pay for a funeral company hired to bury two soldiers killed in action.
As you can see, the legendary courier Jan Karski not without reason said that was much more beneficial to belong to an underground organization than to work in clerical positions .
You can read even more about the everyday life of the Home Army soldiers in the chapter by Sebastian Pawlina, who wrote to the "Great Book of the Home Army" (Znak Horyzont 2015). You will also find texts by other journalists of "Historical Curiosities".
Not only the organization
In theory, the conspiracy took care of everything. In practice, it was different. Once there was no payout, another time someone kept the money for himself. Sometimes the bureaucracy dragged it out for weeks, and people who had something to say were shifting responsibility. As in a normal company.
However, only a few learned about all this. Those in the most important positions, specialists, people who set the tone for underground life. The rest, faced with the organisation's modest financial resources, had to fend for themselves, dividing their time between normal work and secret activities. These people, however, were still friends and colleagues from the departments and cells. A real underground family.
Bibliography:
- Dispatching Department "A" of Warsaw's Kedyw , comp. Hanna Rybicka, Warsaw 2007.
- Kedyw Okręg Warszawa Armii Krajowej. Documents - 1944 , comp. Hanna Rybicka, Warsaw 2009.
- Documents and materials of the Polish Underground State Archives 1939-1956 , vol. 3, ed. Dariusz Baliszewski et al., Warsaw 1995.
- Jan Karski, Secret state. A Tale of the Polish Underground , Krakow 2014.